Jesus’ Stark Challenge to Us: 10 October, 2021

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Mark 10:17–31

The story of the rich young man . . . is the backdrop for an important teaching of Jesus. We must avoid attempts to rationalize verse 25, which reads, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” There is no documentary or archaeological evidence for the fanciful theory that there was a gate called ‘‘the eye of the needle’’ in the wall of Jerusalem big enough to allow a camel entrance, but only if all its baggage was first removed.

This “explanation” negates Jesus’ saying (verse 27) that “For mortals it [salvation] is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

All Christians must renounce what they have and follow the way of detachment, because that is the price of entering the kingdom. Such a teaching confronts the Christian with an immense task, and in the face of it there is only one resource: faith in God who can do all things. Peter and the other disciples are discouraged; he speaks in their name: “We have left everything and followed you.” We can guess his anxious implication: What good is it all? Jesus then lists the things men must be detached from, and promises, along with persecutions, a hundredfold reward in this life. This amounts to saying that it is not possessions as such that are an obstacle to salvation (otherwise they would not be given back to us a hundredfold), but our attachment to them. (St. Mark must have had a twinkle in his eye when he added persecutions to the blessings that will be restored!) Detachment will bring eternal life in the world to come.

“The ‘hundredfold’ of verse 30 represents the conviction of the Markan church that its members had made a good bargain. Adhering to Christ was infinitely rewarding; compared with it, any wrench experienced by separation from family or property was as nothing.” (See Gerard S. Sloyan’s Preaching from the Lectionary [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004], 403). –– Joseph McHugh

Hebrews 4:12–16

The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of God’s word as “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” How does the word function within our communities of faith? How do we reconcile in our liturgy, our preaching, our pastoral care and public ministry God’s prophetic incendiary word with a Jesus who is not “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” but who has “in every respect been tested as we are”? –– John Rollefson

Amos 5:6–7, 10–15

Ours is not the only age that has seen the plight of the poor as a direct result of the profligacy and dishonest dealings of the rich. By dynamic analogy how might God’s word-bearer of old, the prophet Amos, find fresh and pointed expression in our own time of economic turmoil? For some hints, see Kathryn Tanner’s Economy of Grace (Augsburg Fortress, 2005). –– John Rollefson

Joseph McHugh is a freelance writer from New Jersey, and a former weekly newspaper columnist writing on lectionary readings and whose recent writing includes Explain That to Me!:Searching the Gospels for the Honest Truth about Jesus (ACTA Publications).

John Rollefson, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has served congregations in Los Angeles, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and San Francisco.

Homily Service 42, no. 4 (2009): 59–69.

David Turnbloom